As allergic reactions to everything from peanuts to poodles become ever more prevalent we are all likely to find ourselves sitting on the horns of some uncomfortable dilemmas. Two recent stories, culled from John Scott’s’ latest news’ files, illustrate what I mean…
Story 1. Cat Allergy versus ’emotional support’ – courtesy of the Calgary Herald
Air Canada is currently struggling to find away to accommodate both those
passengers who are allergic to cats and those who need to keep their cat with them when travelling for emotional support – both classed as persons with disablities and therefore protected by anti-discrimination legislation.
The Canadian Transport Agency has required Air Canada to either ban cats from the aircraft cabins or to provde a five row buffer zone and a cat-free zone with upgraded air circulation fro those suffering from severe cat allergies – the latter being feasible in some of Air Canada’s planes but not in its large fleet of Dash-8s. This may be tiresome for the airline, but is not unmanageable. Well, not until a pasenger who travels with a cat as emotional support wants to get on the same plane.
But while the cat allergic passenger would presumably have warned the airline of his/her need for a cat-free area, the person with the ’emotional support’ cat does not need to provide any advance notice to carrier and can just show up for the flight and and present a note from the certified mental-health professional who is treating them – and cannot be refused a seat on the flight.
Bizarre though this may seem to those of us who are neither cat allergic nor in need of feline support, it presents a serious problem to both of the travellers and to the airline…
Story 2. Mother of defendant not allowed into court room as she was wearing perfume – courtesy of the Quad-City Times
In this case Babette Liby and her mother were not allowed to enter the courtroom where her son was being sentenced on a drug charge (and therefore even to see him before he was taken away to prison) because they were wearing perfume and the court reporter had an allergy to perfume.
While expressing sympathy for the court reporter (Mrs Liby said that she fully understood allergic’s reporter’s position as members of her own family had to carry Epipens for an allergy to bee stings) she felt that her right to see her son had been violated by not being allowed to enter the court room.
As the journalist who wrote the piece commented, ‘in this case an individual’s right to not be placed in peril in her workplace is overriding others’ right to be present in her workplace.’ Is this right?
It is the same dilemma which is faced by schools which have peanut allergic pupils – and which ones do not these days? Are the non-peanut-allergic children’s rights being violated by being prevented from eating a harmless (to them), nutritious and much loved food merely because it may cause harm to another child? While no parent would, I am sure, willingly wish an anaphylactic reaction on an allergic child, and while one can fully appreciate the concern that having peanuts in a school setting must cause to the parents of peanut allergic children (let alone about the children themselves) there is a perfectly valid point of principle here.
To move it out of the world of allergy, the same argument is deployed by smokers wanting to know why their freedom to enjoy themselves as they choose (eg by smoking) should be restricted by those who do not wish to smoke. In the case of smoking, the evidence of the harm to the population at large done by smoking does now seem sufficiently robust to justify the arbitrary curtailment of smokers’ rights. But in the case of the cats, you have a much more equal balance of potential harm – while in the case of the perfume and the court reporter you have a clash of two entirely different rights (the mother’s right to see her son and the perfume-allergic reporter’s right to continue to do her job and have her workplace accommodate her allergy). And who is to adjudicate on which is the more important?
Wow…the complexities are mind crunching. Or maybe they are not.
It could be argued that the person who cannot fly without the comfort of a cat is in a place not dissimilar from the person who cannot fly without the comfort of a cigarette. But they are treated very differently. The cat person gets half the plane cleared to make a ‘cat-free zone’ while the smoker is told that, if he cannot fly without a fag, then he doesn’t get to fly. It would save the airline bucket loads of cash to provide the emotionally challenged flyer with human support on the flight. If only a cat will do, then maybe they don’t get to fly either.
Sometimes it is necessary to think outside the box. In the case of the mother whose son was about to be sent down, a visit to the ladies room with a block of carbolic soap and a scrubbing brush would probably have solved the problem.
It is all getting very complicated. I agree with James. Cat free zones seems way over the top and is not addressed the problem the person has. It’s not normal to need a cat with you to travel. By allowing them to do this they don’t need to address this issues. I’ve never heard of cats being allowed on airoplanes but I suppose the ‘cat support’ person may not feel able to travel without their cat. This is totally different, it’s a pshychological condition where the person needs the cat with them, not the same as an allergy, but the allergic person is left feeling that more and more things are just not safe and out of bounds like eating out etc. The cat person can’t go out without the cat and allergic person can’t go out incase they come across their trigger allergen. I have given up trying to get a suitable meal on planes. I just take my own food. Cabin staff rarely know what’s in food or how it was prepared and even with prior booking and reminders, meals are regularly not forthcoming.
In the case of the reporter with the perfume allergy, would it not be simple to inform all persons due to be present not to wear any perfume or they will be denyed entry? For cat support people the only way this would ever work, if they don’t have to inform airlines prior to travel, is to have some cat free flights. They cannot book on these flights if they need to travel with their cat.
With the schools issue I really feel for the kids with allergies who are increasingly being made to sit on the ‘allergy table’ and being segregated from their class mates. As if having allergies is not bad enough, can we not come up with some sensible way that kids can learn about allergies, and learn to eat alongside one another, after all, once they leave school they’re on their own to cope with their allergen wherever it may pop up. I don’t have children so doubtless I might feel different if my own child was at risk from serious allergic reactions.
In many ways I agree with both James and Ruth. There has to be some limit set (or some common sense applied) to ‘disability rights’ otherwise daily life will grind to a halt. (Some may remember the saga of the New York kneeling buses designed to accommodate those in wheelchairs. In the event they were so unreliable that wheelchair users avoided them and cost so much that it would have been cheaper to provide every wheelchair used in the city with a private limo 24/7.)
In the case of the reporter and the perfume, I had not give the whole (rather long) story… The court apparently does normally try to inform all potential attendees about the perfume ban, but there was no way that anyone in the court would have know that the defendant’s mother was thinking of attending, so would not have thought to inform her. Maybe James’ suggestion of the application of carbolic would have been the most sensible course of action.
The peanuts (or other allergens) in school is a difficult one – and many parents would agree that it is far better for the child to learn to cope than to wrap them in cotton wool. However, when you are dealing with very young children this really may not be practical and, unless one has lived with (which I have not) the stress of knowing, every day, that your child might not come home from school because someone else brought a peanut butter sandwich in the lunch pack, it is very hard to be too censorious of those who wish to protect by banning.